


In the Calm Between Moments

by viklikesfic (v_angelique)



Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: AU, Angst, Historical, M/M, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-02-18
Updated: 2007-02-18
Packaged: 2017-10-04 13:21:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/v_angelique/pseuds/viklikesfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A World War II ficlet inspired by some poetry and other things.  Thank you to RC for the beta and the ego-boosting squee.  If anyone finds an error, feel free to correct me, as this really isn't my period.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Calm Between Moments

Elijah fucks him up against the side of a wall, his cheek smashed against the wood panelling, his knee bruising easily as it bangs into a low shelf. Elijah licks Dominic's ear and pushes him to his knees on the plush carpeting when he's through and tells Dominic to finish himself off, to wrap his hand around his own cock and pull, and so Dominic does, until he comes, until he's screaming, Elijah's name lost in a frenzy of syllables and English and German and something else heady and otherworldly.

Dominic cries when he finds out, three days later. What Elijah was doing at the officer's club, he doesn't know. How he got in is a mystery, now, but he was spying, he was working for the Russians—not even the Germans, but the bloody Russians—and he was looking for documents and Dominic plays dumb of course, he has to, to save his own hide. But Elijah is a prisoner of war and Dominic doesn't know what is going to happen to him but it isn't good. It could just as easily be Dominic, of course, could easily be Dominic at the hands of the Germans if his own grab-and-run intelligence gathering missions had failed, but they hadn't, and he is safe now.

This war is about sides, and Elijah has lost all hope of safety.

****

It's Orlando who finds him, red-rimmed around the eyes, despondent and pale, turning the decorations that are normally pinned proudly to his jacket over and over in his hand. The missions he flew early in the war earned him these baubles, these pieces of metal that show his quality, but nothing comes without a price. Dominic is wondering now, if the boys he killed out there had families, if they came from Bremen or Munich and if he was ever really cut out to be a spy for the English government, language skills and recommendations notwithstanding.

Orlando's first kiss comes just under the hairline, just above the temple, and it shocks Dominic into movement, shocks him into grabbing with dull fingers at the waist of Orlando's jacket and tugging until Orlando's right leg swings over his lap. It is quick and unromantic; there is necessity in this war that there never was in life, in childhood, in the mysterious shadows and conifers of the Schwarzwald where he and Matthew picked wild berries and Hitler was only a name.

Matthew is dead now.

Dominic curses when he comes.

****

Billy is there when the news comes in, when the Allies enter Berlin. He stands a little bit back from the group of RAF officers clustered around the radio, and there are years in his eyes that Dominic cannot even fathom. He feels a scrape on one of his knuckles with the fingers of the opposite hand and keeps his eyes on Billy, tugs his lower lip between his teeth, lets understanding build in the space between them.

It is weeks and weeks before they touch, and the weeks are uncomfortable, and Dominic doesn't know what to do in this brave new world, in this world without war. Hasty encounters were easy for him, Elijah and Orlando were easy, and this peacetime hurts almost more than the uncertainty of the conflict, for there is no place for him, no place for Dominic—still barely more than a boy with nothing more than fluency in German and some medals to recommend him. He finds a job in a factory and Billy doesn't care. He kisses the copper corners of dry, cracked, lips and gives Dominic his own salvation.


End file.
